I often feel that I'm lucky to have learned English. While watching American movies, I really get the feeling. I caught the movie "Bucket List" starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. I think both are great, talented and are the people who were born to become actors. By the way, the original title is translated into Japanese with a different title. The Japanese title is 「最高の人生の見つけ方」. If retranslated into English the title would be "How to find the best way of life". Japanese and English are completely different languages and such a translation of the title might be inevitable.
When Morgan wrote "Bucket List" on the memo pad, "棺桶リスト" which means "coffin list" in English, appeared on the Japanese subtitles. I wondered why bucket had the meaning of coffin or the translater might have made an association of ideas from bucket to basket and next casket. As soon as Jack found the note, he shouted "kick the bucket" blah, blah, blah. I dare to expound my opinion here to get the criticism of native speakers.
There's a phrase "kick the bucket" that means "die". To tell the truth, I had an image about "kick the bucket" in which a man trips over a bucket and fall down and finally hits his head and dies. I investigated the real meaning of this phrase in the big etymological dictionary and found the origin of the phrase. The bucket indicates the stepstool of the hanging platform. If you kick this stepstool, you would be hung up from the tree or something. If so, "kick the bucket" would mean only suicide, but this phrase looks like it's used in any type of death, like death from illnesses, accidents, or even murders. It's funny, but coming back to the right track, let's think about the kicking. Just after kicking the bucket, the man will die. That is to say, kicking the bucket is the last intentional action in his life. This is my conclusion. Can I express things that we want to do at the end of our life as the buckets?
(Comments from my teacher in Canada)
"To kick the bucket" does indeed mean to die in a general sense, but it comes from rhyming cockney slang.
(Vocabulary)
be translated into Japanese with a different title
原題とは異なるタイトルで日本語に翻訳される
make an association of ideas 連想する
trip over a log 丸太に蹴つまずく
etymologic(al) dictionary 語源辞典
ladder // platform // step ladder // stepstool 踏み台
英語を勉強していて良かったと思う瞬間がある。アメリカ映画を見るときがそうだ。
先日、「Bucket List」というアメリカ映画を見た。邦題は「最高の人生の見つけ方」だ。これを更に英語に訳すと、「How to find the best life」とでもなるだろうか。映画のセリフは原題とは異なるタイトルで日本語に翻訳される。これは仕方のないことであろうが、残念なことだ。
Morgan Freeman がメモ用紙にBucket Listと書いたとき、字幕では「棺桶リスト」と出た。bucket にそんな意味があったのか？bucket からbasket、そしてcasketというような連想で間違えたのではないかと。その直後にJack Nicholsonがbucketの意味を言っているのに翻訳者はその語感を訳出できていない。ネイティブの批判に晒すために敢えて英語で持論を述べてみる。
"kick the bucket"という慣用句がある。バケツを蹴飛ばすということだが、これが死ぬことを意味する。数年前まで長い間、バケツにつまずいて転んで頭でも打って死ぬと言うことかと思っていた。この言葉がジャックの口から発せられたので改めて語源を確認した。バケツは首つりの踏み台であり、これを蹴飛ばすことで死ぬことになる。では自殺することを意味するのかというとそうでもなく、病死でも事故死でも使えるのが不思議だが。で、改めて語源を考えてみると、バケツを蹴ることはその直後に死ぬことを考えると、死ぬ直前に意志を持って行う最後の行為ではないか。つまりbucket listとは死ぬ直前にする最後の行為ではないのか。そして映画ではそのリストについて描かれている。きれいな理論ではないだろうか？
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